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There's still a lot of life in Half Life.
Modding, where amateur developers from across the globe join forces to alter the gameplay and content of the original game, creating an entirely new experience, is big. So big, in fact, that one index at http://www.halflifeworld.co.uk/mods/... lists 214 multiplayer and 116 single player mods. Considering most single player mods feature a new story, new maps, new weapons, new items and new abilities, this represents serious value-for-money for the Half-Life owner. All mods are available free. Along with a community numbering into the millions, I'm a huge fan of Counter Strike, the totally complusive mod where each team play either terrorists or counter-terrorists in a bombing or hostage rescue scenario. Counter Strike's "hook" is that in each round, once you've died (it's very easy to die, believe me) you can only watch the action as a ghost. No Quake-style instant spawning, CS grabs you slyly around the neck and suggests that next time, you might do a little better. And you try. This addiction means I rarely look at other mods. Even single-player mods have gone out the window since I got broadband and internet games went from marginally playable to extremely playable. The only reason Natural Selection caught my attention was that PC Gamer magazine featured it on their coverdisc... and now I have two addictions. Natural Selection is good. Great, even. If you have ever relished the semi-gothic, industrial and dangerous atmosphere of the Alien films, you need to play Natural Selection. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to drive back hoardes of alien invaders with just your human compadres and some serious hardware to help you, this is the game for you. Two teams. You can play as either alien or marine, and believe me, never were two playing styles further devolved. Put an alien and a human in a room and the alien will win. In fact, put an alien and three humans in a room and the alien will probably win. Aliens are tough. If you're a marine, the only thing you've got going for you is your teammates. Aliens pretty much play as individuals, whereas for a marine, the team is everything, which brings me to the next revelation. Natural Selection isn't just a first-person-shooter (FPS) like Counter Strike, Quake, Doom et al. It's also a real-time-strategy (RTS) game like Command & Conquer and Starcraft. One member of the human team becomes the Commander and he or she sees the game from a top-down, RTS-style perspective. Both teams are vying for the control of resource nodes throughout the map. Once there are resources coming in, the Commander can start the construction of armories, sentry-guns, transporter pads and more resource extractors, amongst many others. But the Commander isn't all powerful, once he "places" a structure it's up to the marines to get to the location and "build" it. More marines means a faster build, something you start to appreciate when trying to complete a defensive sentry gun as the alien hoardes are pouring out of air ducts all around you. The Commander is also extremely important in guiding overall tactics. Half Life has had real-time voice communications built in for a while and if you have a broadband connection, Natural Selection really takes advantage of it. Your Commander barks out orders and sets waypoints for you to follow to counter the alien forces. He drops health and ammo for you pick up after intense battles. He orchestrates complex outflanking manouevers to invade the alien base. Those who step into the Commander's chair at the start of each game should be ready for a challenge. The aliens have no Commander, but instead can evolve into different types during the course of the game. There is a builder type which can construct alien versions of sentry guns, resource towers and the all-important hives - the number of which built (up to three) in a game determine the level of abilities the aliens possess. With three hives, the aliens become serious, serious trouble and can evolve (with sufficient resources) to become the onomatopoeic "Ohnos" - a thunderous and vast creature the approaching sound of which signals for the marines the very likely demise of their entire base. Marine missions to destroy hives and defend the particular locations where new ones can be established become commonplace. Dying as either species incurs a ten second wait before being re-spawned. Games can therefore take a long, long time to complete, with almost total obliteration of the other side being the only path to victory. This makes a pleasant change from the typical two minute game of Counter Strike. There is a real sense at the start of each game to build your defenses to the best of your ability, because they will be tested! There's almost too much of the experience to write about. To conclude, here's some of my favourite features: the utterly-superb levels which are vast, labyrinth and exactly what you would expect an intergalactic cargo ship to resemble. The marine siege gun, which fires at aliens through walls and is therefore an excellent indicator of their location. When it starts moving quickly, you know they're nearby! The alien's "hive-sight" where enemies and friends alike are highlighted on screen even through solid objects. The cold sweat that you start producing when one your marine teammates notes that a third hive has been constructed. The pleasure resulting in destroying the marine's "infantry portals" so that none that die can respawn. Natural Selection is as close as modern technology will allow to come to being in movies in the style of Aliens. Playing as a marine is the most intensively team-based experience in any game I know. Playing as an alien requires an genuinely different sort of thinking. If you have Half Life and a good internet connection, you'd be a fool not to check this out. And it's free! 9/10 http://www.natural-selection.org/...
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